Educators Books

I give this to my first level Reiki Students to help take away the mystery of how Reiki got started in the United States and it's source.

This book explains the beginnings and history of Reiki and gives examples of how to use the energy not only for healing the body, but getting rid of old guilts and fears, helping your plants grow, and much more. Such dramatic results have been seen with this method that more and more hospitals in the U.S. are having a Reiki Master on call to help in aiding the healing process of their patients. Even though the symbols are not shown, this book gives the author's tested examples of the results achieved using this universal energy that is available to all of us. I highly recommend this book.

This is an excellent book. I highly recommend it for my students and for other Reiki Practitioners.

Thank you Frank Arjava Petter for being daring and brave to bring the 'real' version of Dr. Usui's Reiki to the west. I had from the beginning a little difficulty to accept everything which was said about the 'grand-masters' and their likes. And in the past very little facts were given about Dr. Usui and mainly in a kind of fairy story tale. Now I can accept Reiki as I believe Reiki should be: free from major money making and available for all people who truly wish to heal themselves, others and the world. God and Reiki bless us all. B. Müller, Reiki Master, South Africa

I have studied Reiki and am a Reiki Master. I give this book to all of my Reiki students because it explains Reiki so simply and well. I especially like that it is informative without giving the impression that only the author's opinion of Reiki is important, and also that it sites Reiki's founder, Dr. Mikao Usui. It is clearly a tool to help one further one's understanding of Reiki.

Matthews and Foster do a wonderful job of educating parents and educators of gifted children. This book includes information on all aspect of the gifted child that a parent or educator would need to know. I highly recommend this book to anyone who works with or has gifted children!

Being Smart is a great introduction to giftedness, for the parent, teacher, even administrator, those who are brand new, and those who think they "know all about gifted children." Dispelling myths and answering questions along the way, Matthews and Foster step us through giftedness from identification to education, and into social / emotional. How to answer the tricky questions, how to support gifted kids in today's egalitarian world, and what to tell the kids along the way - Being Smart covers it all.

All the while, they meet their goal: share details on how we, parents and educators, can meet the gifted child's educational and social / emotional needs. Much more than just an introduction, Being Smart should be in every gifted book collection...

The preservcie teachers in my gifted education class at OISE/UT have found Being Smart About Gifted Children to be a very good guide in their efforts to understand gifted children. As their instructor, I appreciate the current research and practical ideas, which are communicated eloquently in straightforward prose. Thus, I would strongly recommend this book to teachers and parents interested in learning more about the psychology and education of highly able learners.

The preservcie teachers in my gifted education class at OISE/UT have found Being Smart About Gifted Children to be a very good guide in their efforts to understand gifted children. As their instructor, I appreciate the current research and practical ideas, which are communicated eloquently in straightforward prose. Thus, I would strongly recommend this book to teachers and parents interested in learning more about the psychology and education of highly able learners.

This new book is the best resource I have seen for schools and
parents about the issues that surround gifted children and their
education. If you buy one book about gifted kids, make this the one.

July 2008
I originally reviewed this book in August 2005. Three years later I'm still turning to it for information. Still up to date, still usefull and still recommended.


August 2005
I've just read this book and found it to be a great resouce. In the introduction the author wrote that his " ... main aim was to provide a book that would help a complete novice shoot, edit, and output high-quality video ...." Ozer's intended audience is the person who has been given the responisibilty of creating instructional, training and corporate videos and needs to quickly learn how to do it. This is not a book for the person who wants a full time career in video, but rather for the worker who finds that this has been added to his or her job tasks. It may be a HR person who needs to make a video explaining new company policies, a teacher who needs to shoot a lecture, or a salesperson who needs to "interview" an engineer about the latest and greatest widget he's going to sell. While Ozer does not cover shooting weddings, news gathering, or documentaries, the techniques and methods learnt here can be used in making those as well as videos for family and friends.

Ozer makes four basic assumptions about the reader:
* They are working alone.
* They have only one camcorder.
* They are editing digitally.
* They are producing for professional distribution.

The three shooting scenarios covered are:
*Executive Briefing - a single person, facing the camera delivering a message to an audience.
*Interview - asking questions of one person.
*Discussion / Training - asking questions of two or more people who may be interacting with each other.

The first section of the book covers capturing audio and video, and lighting. Realizing that the reader may not have the budget of a major television network, he confines his discussion of these things to finding inexpensive solutions.

His next section covers workflow, editing and converting dv video to streaming video and DVDs. The book is not tied to one specific editing program or operating system. Specific instructions for different editors for each chapter can be downloaed from the author's web site. I found his discussion on choosing codecs for publishing to DVD or the web the best I've read. For once I have a roadmap to follow that I can understand.

Finally he covers distribution by using video in presentations, streaming and using closed captions. For those in education there is a great introduction to creating closed-caption text and why it's different from simply adding sub-titles.

It gives you practical information on such things as shot lists, lighting, audio and how to shoot an interview when you are both the interviewer and camerperson. This is a book about shooting in the field, not in the studio.

Highly recommended.

I had to read this book as part of a multimedia course that I took. The information for me as an IT educator was just what I needed. Jan takes the time to explain things in a level that we all can grasp. His pictures also are extremely helpful in reinforcing the concepts. He also adds humor (self-deprecating at times) which I enjoyed. I can appreciate that after going through a list of codecs. As a fellow college instructor I would love to take one of his face-to-face classes!

I'm not a pro videographer -- I got this book to help me take better video at my church, and at home and on some ocassional business videos. I thought I needed separate books on lighting, audio and how to shoot and edit the video itself, but this book tells me what I need to know with screenshots and illustrations that make it easy to understand. The first chapter in particular, "mastering the video shoot" illustrates some common techniques - where to place the camera, where to place the subject in the camera - that have improved my videos immensely. Highly recommended.

Libraries need to interview and archive footage from their interesting seniors, scouts need to capture their jamborees, and coaches need to focus on what is going right (and wrong) with their team. The list goes on forever, and all those volunteers out there doing the heavy lifting need to read this book, mark the pages and follow the steps! Jan Orzer's book is really saving me from a lot of errors, steering me in the right direction and giving me the confidence to try. If I follow the directions that he illustrates so well (and humorously) I expect to produce video that teaches, entertains and maybe even inspires the viewer. I have never taken a formal course and am finding my way as an amateur, but so far, with Jan's help, I am getting there with better results than I deserve to have, so this book is very good value, and I highly recommend it.

DV 101 is an easy book to get your arms around, whether you're a video newbie, or someone looking for a refresher course. The downloadable supplementary workbooks carry on the tradition of feeding you just the information you need, and nothing more. Corporate budgets being what they are today, chances are your department will not have funding for a large production staffed with pro videographers. I think you will find DV 101 an indispensable guide to real-world techniques that work without breaking the bank. From a business user's perspective, I can say Jan Ozer's book provides the information you'll need to produce respectable results that will delight both your target audience and your CFO.

Ric Klass, with humor and a clear, purposeful writing style, took me into his math classroom in an inner city high school in New York. I found myself empathizing with his desire to do someone some good; to make the world a better place. It was easy to understand his frustrations with all the barriers he had to get around to try to fulfill his dream, and just as easy to rejoyce in some small hint of success.
As well as being a good read, this book has an important message for us. We must make some changes in the way our children are being taught, especially those students who need to escape from a seemingly hopeless environment. I recommend this book to anyone who cares about children and our future as a nation. I'm telling all of my friends about it. JL in SD

Ric Klass' tale of teaching in an inner city school in the Bronx is an open, honest account of his experience. It's humorous and sad at the same time. It's engaging and fun to read. Educators will recognize its truths; others should read it to find out just what goes on in public schools and not only in New York.

This author speaks for all of us teachers who are struggling every day in dealing with hoardes of unruly students. After only reading a few pages, I felt like I could have written the same book. The fact that it is in diary form makes it all the more real and frightening. Reading it is definitely helping me get through the end of this horrific school year. I have highly recommended it to my colleagues.

We all must show respect for those who survive in schools of this kind. Education workers like Mr. Klass are to be commended for enduring an environment of their own choosing if not of their own making. Still, after all the hugs and congratulations, someone has to call out these "teach for America" volunteers and ask why they put up with all the crap instead of joining forces and refusing to proceed. Even the eighteen-year-old grunts in Iraq had the courage to protest being sent into battle without proper gear and protection. Year after year we read the same stories by earnest do-gooders who find happiness among the ruins. What is needed now is fewer acts of goodness and just one brave act of defiance. Let the education workers walk out and leave the asylums to the bureaucrats who thrive in them. If the parents so earnestly wish to be involved, let them take over the schools. They'll soon be using the soiled textbooks as toilet paper, but so be it. They can always apply for a grant from Bill Gates for free lap top computers.

Man Overboard is a very witty and poignant autobiography about the experiences of a new second-career math teacher (actually ninth-career in his case) spending his first year teaching high school in the Bronx. On one level, it explores in an absorbing and meaningful way the various problems in the world of Bronx high school culture. On another level, Mr. Klass is also writing about his career aspirations, and how it feels to have frustrations meeting his goals of helping some people who need it. The book connects with the reader very well on both levels. I particularly liked how the drumbeat of daily problems is punctuated periodically with reflective essays, cast in italics, which are full of common sense and practical, logical analysis and suggestions. It is a very well written and enjoyable book, and I would highly recommend it to all.

Vartan Gregorian has written a thoroughly fascinating book about his remarkable life and accomplishments. In this day and age a great deal of attention is paid to the "common man", as it well should be. But we tend to overlook the fact that it is the uncommon man that leads the way to advances in our culture. Vartan Gregorian is an compelling example of the remarkable talent nature only rarely incorporates into a human body, enabling startling results to be achieved.

From an unremarkable -- indeed, unpromising -- beginning, the child Vartan depended not on his family but on his grandmother and interested strangers to encourage his budding talents. His Armenian ancestors had fled to Iran from persecution and death in Turkey. His mother died when he was a young boy and his father and his stepmother were not close to him. But through a variety of fortuitous interventions he found his way from Iran to Stanford, where he earned his first academic degree.

At Stanford he married a remarkable woman who evidently shared his ability to adjust to new and challenging conditions. She had her first baby in Iran as Gregorian traveled in Afghanistan on a research grant. Then Gregorian began a dizzying ascent of academic activity that took him first to San Francisco State College, then to the University of Texas, and ultimately to the University of Pennsylvania where he became provost. His descriptions of academic politics -- the confoundedly complex interactions of presidents, deans, chancellors, and trustees -- are as fascinating as they are gut-twisting.

It was Gregorian's next move that put him on the public radar. He reluctantly became the head of New York City's Public Library. It was a decaying empire, having reached its peak in earlier decades but now floundering with insufficient scholastic vision and financial support. Gregorian proved to be just the man with the unusual abilities to turn things gloriously around. His vast scholarly knowledge, his enthusiasm and energy, his sense of humor, and his charisma brought in tens of millions of dollars from wealthy donors who were grateful that they had a cause to believe in, as well as a man in whom they could put their trust to use their money in a constructive way.

Gregorian's accomplishments continued unabated as he then moved into the presidency of Brown University, ultimately becoming the head of the Carnegie Foundation.

Here is a man of energy ("I was born energetic"), of vision, of knowledge, of acumen, of character, of superlative accomplishment. Here is a man to admire, to be inspired by. Here is the uncommon man who boosts culture upward.

Although Dr. Gregorian was a poor Armenian boy from Tabriz, Iran, he had a rich cultural heritage. Influential hometown people, who were captivated by his charm and intellectual brilliance, helped him, not only just to survive, but to get a good education, leading him, by way of Beirut, to the U.S. and Stanford University where, after graduating in only 2-1/2 years (while also learning English), he earned his PhD in humanities and history. His teaching career began at San Francisco State University, where, 41 years ago, I had the privilege of being one of his students in modern European history. This was during the years of the student uprising that occurred during 1966 to 1968 at S.F. State. Since Dr. Gregorian is a historian, this memoir is made all the more richer by historical commentary that Dr. Gregorian provides vis-à-vis autobiographical events. His teaching career moves from S.F. State (where he took a year off to go to Afghanistan to study and write a classic book on Afghanistan) to the University of Texas at Austin, then to the University of Pennsylvania where he became Provost. His story makes the trials, tribulations and infighting that go on in universities actually interesting. When Dr. Gregorian took over the presidency of the New York Public Library in 1981, it was suffering from extreme neglect due to New York's financial crises in the late 1970's when NYC was on the edge of bankruptcy. Besides his talent for creative administration, his personal virtues attract the rich and famous (i.e., Brooke Astor, Barbara Walters) to help him achieve his financial objectives for restoring the library. He turned the New York Public Library from a dissipated, physically crumbling institution back to a vibrant educational center in New York City. If you live in New York City, you might have noticed the regeneration of Bryant Park; he was also mostly responsible for that. Following nine years as President of Brown University, Dr. Gregorian became President of the Carneige Corporation, where he is today. For American autobiographies, I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Education, street smart (partially due to his street friends of youth), networking ability, social skills, socializing selectively among the most influential, are contributors to this author's achievements in life thus far.

It would be worth while for Mr. Gregorian to use his skills and experiences in helping today's independent Armenia.

Vartan Gregorian's autobiographic tract, "A Road to Home," tells an extraordinary story. It is the quintessential American Success Story. Here is an Armenian immigrant who comes from a village in Northern Iran, with his high school education completed in Jemaran, the Armenian School of considerable note in Beirut, who earns a BA and a PhD from Stanford (in history, specialty: Afghanistan), teaches at San Francisco State and UT, Austin, ends up being Dean, Provost and almost the President of U. Penn., rescues and forges the renaissance of the New York City public library system from imminent disaster by taking over as president for eight years, becomes the president of Brown University for the next nine years and along the way, turns down the Chancellorship of UC Berkeley, the Presidency of Columbia Univ., Univ. of Miami, Univ. of Michigan, Univ. of Rochester and many others, before becoming president of the Carnegie Corporation.

That pinnacle of academic positions of leadership, the presidency of a university, is not a chance given to very many people. That privilege of being the visionary leader of an institution of higher learning (as well as its chief fund raiser) is reserved to the best of the best and Vartan Gregorian has been one of the most sought after candidates for that post over the last twenty years being on almost everyone's short list! To say that he went from humble beginnings to the very top of the intellectual and academic life in America is to considerably understate the miracles that have paved the way of this deserving and gifted man's life journey. The perilous road that has lead him to the zenith of what America has to offer a scholar is depicted with great humility and panache in the pages of "The Road to Home," a Simon and Schuster 2003 publication. Everyone interested in how fate outstrips logic and predictability ought to read this book. Here is the chronicle of how the brilliance of a kid is first noted and appreciated enough somehow (by a French consular Attache' who happens to be Armenian) and then rewarded and protected by a long chain of benefactors and friends in the middle East (mostly Armenians) and in America (Armenians and many more non Armenians) both, catapulting a strange boy in great need for love and acceptance to shine as an intellectual and scholar, to conquer the toughest of tasks as an administrator, mediator, moderator, visionary, fund raiser, diplomat, keeper of the faith, lighter of the torch of knowledge and learning in Philadelphia, in New York City, in Providence, Rhode Island and in New York City again where, since 1997, he has been the president of the Carnegie Corporation which is a philanthropic organization of great weight and import in the cultural life of America and indeed the world. There are many immigrant stories that make America's spinning roulette wheel of success seem impossible to believe. Here is another such spectacular tale told by the master communicator himself, the staunch believer in education, the power of books, the beauty of scholarship and a man who has found his niche in high society and academe in America against impossible odds.

Imagine a young boy in Tabriz, Iran, born in 1934 to Armenian parents in this Northern Province of Persia known as Azerbaijan. His mother, Shoushig, dies when he is six and a half years old. Together with his little sister Ojik, he is raised by their maternal grandmother, Voski Mirzaian. Her's is the strongest and most lasting influence on this poor boy's life. She is mother and father and grandmother to them since their father is never around, working elsewhere, such as near oil fields, to make ends meet, and is never a warm father anyway, even when he is around. In fact, he is a strange, cold, distant, remarried man who never encourages little Vartanig, never teaches him anything (even though he gives private English lessons to others), never gives him any sort of advice or love of any sort! These circumstances alone ought to be enough to scar a man for life and make it hard for him to have sufficient self-confidence to make it in this cruel world. Add to that the changing of hands of their province between Persia and Soviet Russia, the Second World War, depravity, being part of a Christian Minority in an overwhelmingly Muslim city and country, poverty, lack of food, clothing, proper shelter, constant peril and it is a miracle indeed that this boy grew up to amount to anything at all. The details of these harrowing times are depicted with great care and meticulous detail in the first fifth of the book, The Road to Home. Here we have the familiar positive influence of the Armenian Church, becoming an acolyte and developing a very warm relationship with the steady, ancient tradition of the liturgy and faith that is the hallmark of the Armenian Apostolic tradition. The solace Vartanig derives from these experiences acts as a counterweight to the lack of love and nourishment at home under his father's roof with his younger wife who cares very little for him or his sister. Vartan has his grandmother who teaches him wisdom, myth, faith, morality, history and traditional Armenian tall tails all brewed in one living magic cauldron. Stars and winds and ghosts and other mythological figures intermingle and fire up this precocious boy's imagination as a steady nightly diet administered by his grandmother and her tender loving care. It is remarkable how much of this he reproduces more than fifty years later in the pages of his autobiography. His is a genuine and profound love for his grandmother. Plus, he is far too intelligent not to absorb all he can learn from her about life and this world naturally. Vartan grows and observes the changing world around him. Soviet communists come and go, muslem extremism is always suspected to be a palpable threat to the Armenians and to all Christian boys and girls in particular. Pedophiliacs must be avoided and are rumored to be all around. Street fights with Muslim boys are routine. Vartan reaches his teen years, attending school with worn out shoes, without money to buy books but able to read everything written in Armenian he can get his hands on at the library of the Armenian church and community center. He then starts to write for the Armenian newspaper "Alik" as well about daily affairs and even deliver eulogies at the funeral of important Armenian citizens of Tabriz. From these surroundings, he is somehow able to extricate himself at the age of fifteen at the bold suggestion of the French Vice-consul, Edgar Maloyan, who instructs him he go to Beirut and attend high school at Jemaran. The first turning point or plot point of this story is his grandmother authorizing his departure knowing that it is best for him and his future to leave their village and embrace the larger world. The crown jewel of Armenian schools in Beirut in the fifties with an emphasis on French (and Arabic) instruction and a thorough Armenian education including classical Armenian and Armenian history and culture beyond a normal high school degree was Nshan Palanjian Jemaran. But such a school was simply unreachable for a poor boy from Tabriz whose father would not be of any help and who spoke no Arabic or French to begin with! But he did manage to go to Beirut on his own with just $50 to his name, find people to sponsor him, to take him under their wings, nurture him, find money for him, donate food, arrange make shift dwelling at some sort of "Hotel Luxe" until boarding school facilities were inaugurated a few years hence, and even teach him French on the side so that he could catch up and graduate a few years behind schedule but brilliantly. This unlikely passage to Beirut and an institution of higher learning, makes Vartan think of the words of Graham Greene who once said and he quotes: " There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in." That was Vartan's moment.

It is at Jemaran that his knack for being noticed, appreciated, aided and nurtured takes root in earnest. In Beirut, in the early and middle nineteen fifties, around the intellectual community of Jemaran, many notable Armenians take on his cause. Chief among them is Simon Vratsian, the principal of the school. Vartan becomes one of the unofficial secretaries of this honorable Armenian intellectual who was the last prime minister of the first Armenian Republic before Armenia fell into the clutches of the Soviet empire in 1920. Vartan reads and learns all he can get his hands on at Jemaran. In addition, he writes many of Vratsian's letters since Simon is almost blind by then. Vartan, through this experience, if nothing else, becomes groomed for academic administration since he is exposed to it at a very early age and in all its multiple facets of fund raising and community affairs and public relations and vision and rigor and all other aspects of pedagogy. Vartan, in need of a father figure, in need of people to believe in him and encourage him, finds many in Beirut and in Jemaran, all of which is delicately and precisely depicted in The Road to Home. He completes the entire venerable "Hayakidagan" (Armenology) course, reads voraciously, learns about life in the fast and wild town which Beirut was in the 1950s and graduates with honors ready to be shipped out to the West coast where he is accepted in Stanford. Le Petit Paris, as Beirut is referred to, makes a man out of him and a man hungry for knowledge.

The next fifth of the book is about his spectacular career at Stanford both as an undergraduate and graduate student. Again, his brilliance and remarkable attributes are detected by professors who become his champions for life! He is helped by these historians and scholars throughout his academic journey. They see a future for him he cannot even imagine and take it upon themselves to walk him through the steps to achieve greatness! Vartan is appreciated and guided by giants in his field who pave the way for him and are always rewarded by how well he does, given these opportunities. Instead of being supported by Jemaran throughout his stay at Stanford, he receives University support at the end of two years, finishes his BA that quickly and starts his graduate program right then and there. He has a rich life at Stanford, which molds him further as a man and as a scholar. He meets his future wife there and marries her in such spectacular fashion that I do not want to spoil it by paraphrasing the story here. You will have to read pages 132-135 to see for yourself. Clare Russell learns Armenian and becomes his mate for life from that time on. Theirs is a happy marriage and one where the journey is shared and burdens distributed and hardships met with equal courage and valor on both their parts.

And its not that Vartan does not put Clare in harm's way! For starters, he receives a substantial travel and research grant to spend time in London, Paris, Beirut, Kabul and Karachi. His aim is to gather the raw data for his thesis on Afghanistan's transition to becoming a modern state. He takes Clare along for this trip but she is already pregnant so by the time they arrive in Beirut, she gives birth and stays there while Vartan goes to Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan and back on his own. This remarkable woman now has to fend for herself in a hotel room (where the giant cockroaches are described in vivid detail in the book) with a newborn son! She does so with the help of all the same cast of characters associated with Jemaran and the thriving Armenian community in Beirut when Vartan was there alone 6 years earlier. History repeats itself, Vartan avails himself of the generosity and friendship of old acquaintances and his research makes very good progress.

Back to California they come and a job as a history instructor at San Francisco State University. Why? Because there are no jobs that can be arranged at AUB or Jemaran in Beirut! Vartan would have loved staying in Beirut. He tries and his meteoric rise to the top of US academic circles is because there are no suitable teaching jobs for him in Beirut! Lucky for us, one could say. Vartan faces the middle to late sixties in San Francisco. A less than ideal choice given the turmoil at the local Universities then, the hippy movement, the sit ins, the Black Panthers, the anti-war movement... It is a mess and a new assistant professor has to face it all in a hot seat that was SF State. Not as bad as Berkeley, as the book explains, but close.

It is no surprise then that the newly minted PhD who is barely able to make ends meet with an academic salary at a state school (living with a wife and son) and teaching part time here and there including Stanford and other colleges, welcomes the chance to go to the university of Texas, after a short stint at UCLA and teach at a research university with a graduate program and be a historian. His book "The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: Politics of Reform and Modernization, 1880-1946" was just then accepted for publication by Stanford University press. In the meantime, He visits Beirut again and Armenia and hopes to write a book on the modern history of that country. Instead, he gets involved in University politics down in Austin. He is asked to help the dean and that work eventually lands him in the middle of political infighting within factions of the faculty and the administration. The Road to Home describes this in great detail in chapter 10. Vartan Gregorian, learns to be an active player in University politics at UT. He then takes an endowed chair in Armenian studies at U Penn. and escapes the firings and turmoil that leave no friendly faces down in Texas. He also joins the history department of this prestigious ivy league school and embarks on the fast track career to high level university administration. He first becomes the founding dean of the college of arts and sciences at the age of thirty five! This is followed by heroic efforts at organizing the university for the bicentennial of our nation in 1976, a major fund raising campaign, and the attainment of the top academic post of Provost. Dr. Gregorian learns what its like to deal with the board of Trustees of a university and all the internal politics and machinations that would make the chatter at the Tower of Babel sound like a Gregorian Chant. He perseveres, helps solve many of U Penn's problems and sets a very good course for the university. Alas, there is opposition to his ascension to the post of President. In the meantime, he agonizes over the offer of being Berkeley's Chancellor, a lifelong dream of his and ultimate goal throughout his early academic career. He decides to stay at Penn because he is told he should finish what he started. He is told that he is a shoe in for the presidency. He should just wait and assume the helm. Alas, he is blocked at the end and many of the fat cats who are trustees of the university who do not like him are, let us say, blue bloods, who do not believe he would have the "social graces" (or the looks, perhaps) for such a job... Hmm... racism? You bet! Discrimination against a darker skinned, curly haired, short Armenian man whose brilliance and dedication and virtues they could not see? Surely! Philadelphia is well depicted in this book as being full of "Mayflower" syndrome suffering WASPs. Poor Vartan falls victim to their ingrate state.

But, the star of this story ascends far beyond a stuffy old school's board room antics and lands as the savior of the New York City Public Library system. This eighty nine distinct branch or property system which was at the verge of collapse and irreversible decay is resurrected under the able leadership of Dr. Gregorian for eight long years of fourteen hour days and double lunches and double dinners and fund raising and consciousness raising activities and innovations and vision setting leadership. At the completion of that renovation campaign he finally accepts the presidency of an Ivy League School, Brown University, in Providence Rhode Island. His nine years there reorient that school towards a far more successful path and improve its minority and gender distribution and hiring practices and many other modern innovations that take Brown to a far higher ground of success than it was in 1989 when Dr. Gregorian took over its helm.

The latest chapter in the career of this tireless and remarkable man dedicated to academia, scholarship, libraries, books, teaching and a life of the mind is to head up the Carnegie Corporation, which is a charitable organization of the first caliber dedicated to the betterment of the world through the dissemination of knowledge. Dr. Gregorian is a happy man from all appearances. He is a tireless advocate for causes he believes in with a passion. His enthusiasm is contagious. He sets courses for action and follows through with them till the end. He is a no nonsense achiever who has aided many a worthwhile cause with absolute dedication and imperturbable resolve. He has never rested on his laurels nor has he taken the easy way out.

One could imagine that being an Armenian and an immigrant gave Dr. Gregorian the advantage over more traditional local talent. He sure had something to prove and he was hungry throughout the journey. He appreciated all that was done for him and he took none of it for granted. He wanted to make his life mean something. He knew of the Armenian genocide and the displacement of his people. He knew that an Armenian owes his being alive to divine fate and that squandering his life away and the opportunities so many had sacrificed so much to make possible for him would be cruelly wasted if it were not his task to make them all proud. As this book shows, one can not praise this dedicated administrator enough for all the potential he has unleashed in New York, Philadelphia and Rhode Island by untiring dedication and a principled approach to the betterment of this land of freedom he has adopted as his own.

My only criticism of the book is that it leaves so much out! There is so much more one would have liked to hear him describe and discuss. For instance, and this is just the tip of the iceberg, how did he perceive the differences between the Armenians he met in Beirut from the Iranian Armenians he knew back in Tabriz and Teheran? How about the Armenian communities in the SF bay area and Philadelphia, NY and Providence? Any differences and similarities there, he would care to dissect for us? What happened to his book on Armenia? Are there notes left of that work? His research and plans? Is that water under the bridge now? Did he ever produce any graduate students of his own in Texas or U Penn? What are his PhD students up to, if he has had any? That is, what is his intellectual legacy as a scholar? And another thing, what does he think of Afghanistan today? The book makes reference to 9-11 and to unrelated speeches he has given in 2002. How about Afghanistan? He was, after all, a world expert in this arena at one point not so long ago. Similarly, what efforts has he made on behalf of the Armenian cause or for free and independent Armenia since 1991? What are his views on how Armenia's intellectual capital can be preserved or augmented? What can we do and what course of action would he suggest given his vast experience at administering universities and charitable organizations? It would help a lot if he would write publicly and let everyone know what he sees as a best coarse of action. Dr. Gregorian is an asset of immeasurable proportions to a community that can only be awed and proud to call him one of their own. In short, read The Road to Home. Its message to all Armenians and Americans seems to be, you can find a home (after all) if you keep your eyes wide open in this land of vast opportunity.

I first learned of Vartan Gregorian when he became provost of the University of Pennsylvania while I was attending grad school there. He was a colorful figure who seemed to be as much at odds with the university as the contentious students during the turbulent late 70's. Later, he went on to head the New York Public Library and then Brown University. He seemed to have a magical way to become influential and well-liked. After reading this book, I liked him a lot and wished I'd had a chance to know him while I was at Penn. Gregorian is a man of letters and great charisma.

Gregorian's story of his life is as charming as his public persona. From the opening lines about his life in Tabriz, Iran as a member of the Armenian minority community there, to his wise grandmother who raised him, his life is exciting and fraught with tragedy and pitfalls. His mother dies in childbirth and his father essentially abandons the family. Somehow, Vartan manages to find an education despite great difficulties and he is sponsored finally to go to the Armenian University in Beirut. From there, his career as a professor and man of letters takes off and he soars, always helped by friends of influence who provide that wind under his wings. And he's grateful. He moves some thirty times (not thirty jobs, as he points out) and goes from Stanford to Texas to Penn, to New York and places in between. All along he meets luminaries like Jackie Kennedy Onassis, the Queen of England, makes friends with former BU president John Silber and yet seems to stay folksy and unaffected by all the glitter.

The book is highly readable and a fine memoir--whether you've heard of Gregorian or not, this is a wonderful tale about a man who overcame ridiculously bad odds to become one of America's most influential public figures in education. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Kluge takes you into the inner workings of a small liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio during the '90's. He looks at the admissions, grades, decisions, teaching expectations/styles,tenures, fraternities, etc., that make this college click and draw in more students. He discusses his contributions and his interaction with other professors and departments. Being a college instructor myself, I found that much of what he expressed so well, could apply to my Micronesian college. Good writer and accurate in his observations and conclusions. I liked it and have recommended it to other professor-types.

This book is a great look at small liberal arts colleges through the eyes of a past graduate returning to teach at his alma mater. The book provides insight into the inner workings of a college both from an administrative and academic point of view. Kluge's reflections are always though-provoking and yet the prose is so wonderfully simple. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

Liberal arts colleges evoke a certain image in the American imagination: ivy-laced little cities on a thousand different hills; places rich in tradition, where teachers teach, students learn, and smallness encourages community and accountability. As compared to big research universities, their professors are less likely to be distracted by big-city pretensions and obsequious grad students. The small-college ideal is what much of America likes to think higher education once was and should be again.

Kluge, in this touching, sardonic reconsideration of his own alma mater, Kenyon College (the book is essentially a diary of the year he spent back in Gambier, Ohio, as a visiting professor), shows us that the reality of a real liberal arts college -- its ghosts, aspirations, conceits, compromises -- is far more complicated. Its history and traditions are as much a curse as a blessing. The dignified, self-knowing exterior it presents to prospective students and the public may mask self-doubts, intrigues, identity crises. For faculty as well as students, small size and intimacy means academic and cultural debates are more difficult to avoid, the stakes higher, the joys and sorrows more intensely personal.

Though not the author's primary purpose, Alma Mater provides a rich and interpretive portrait of contemporary American academic culture. Today a college like Kenyon, isolated though it may be by geography, is awash in the same turmoils as the biggest and most unwieldy Research I institution: race, gender, fraternities, curriculum, faculty roles and rewards, and, as always, money. Just as TV and computers have virtually wiped out traditional regional cultures, so journals, conferences, and faculty mobility assure that professors in vastly different settings will be wrestling with the same ideas, controversies, and alienations.

Kluge's vivid, indeed exquisite, writing draws out larger truths behind quotidian events and observations. Office corridors strangely dark and deserted in the middle of a weekday become a metaphor for faculty overspecialization (increasingly treated like free agents, professors ply their little projects in solitude from home) and the consequent loss of campus collegiality and sense of community. Figures at a faculty meeting seem to come from some central casting of academic types and images. And anyone who has taught a college course would empathize with Kluge's take on grading: "Splattering comments on papers, you sense you are working harder on grading than they ever did on writing, that you are obliged to take seriously what they took casually."

To his bemusement, Kluge, ultimately discovers he can't go home again. But he gives us a loving and richly detailed portrait of the inner life of a college he still loves, a "good place," and we understand why.

As a professor at a small college (Muhlenberg, in Allentown, PA), I found these descriptions of Kenyon to be instantly transferrable. When Alma Mater was sweeping Muhlenberg a few years ago, my faculty colleagues swore that Kluge must have been hiding behind the drapes, so perfectly did he capture the scene here. Of course, friends on other campuses said the same. Kluge has hit upon something universal about what it means to be a faculty member at a liberal arts college in a book that is at once funny, moving, and spot-on accurate.

Every autumn, I make a point of pulling Alma Mater off the shelf to recharge my professorial batteries. In so doing, I remind myself of both the peculiarities and the nobility of this profession. And I remind myself, as well, of what excellent writing sounds like.

Professors, even visiting ones, have one rare luxury. They live and work in a place where everyone stops and listens to their opinions. Did P.F. forget to mention all the fawning adoration that was his lot in tiny Gambier? Tough life. This book was accurate in what it did record (I was there too, after all), but by synecdoche presented a part to be taken for the whole. An easy for example; it's convenient to present anecdotal evidence that the entire student body was lazy and spoiled, since this excuses the professor(s) from having to pay attention to or bother about the ones who are not either of those things. And it gives an old fellow something to gripe about and be nostalgic for. There's excellent mileage in such an opinion, without a doubt. Maybe even a book. And, after all, Alma Mater is on my bookshelf, reminding me of my undergraduate days and of the coot on Middle Path who used to reply to my passing "good morning" with outraged glares and once a tirade about perfectly decent looking young women who chose to dress like hoboes. Ah, nostalgia. Who gets that much bang for the buck in a big city? Such thoughts are a comfort while paying student loans. If you are connected with Kenyon, this is an amusing read which raises corollary questions about the relative laziness or degree of spoilation found in the professors at a small, expensive liberal arts college.

When we moved overseas and had to be very selective on which items to take along on the plane, I selected Cathy Duffy's " Christian Home Educators Curriculum Manual 1997-98". It was the key to all the other resources we needed to continue to homeschool our children in Junior and High School, with very helpful comments, addresses and phone numbers of publishers. I understand the new edition is even better! I am buying it right now just to update the information.

When we moved overseas and had to be very selective on which items to take along on the plane, I selected Cathy Duffy's " Christian Home Educators Curriculum Manual 1997-98". It was the key to all the other resources we needed to continue to homeschool our children in Junior and High School, with very helpful comments, addresses and phone numbers of publishers. I understand the new edition is even better! I am buying it right now just to update the information.

Homeschooling has become a big business with lots and lots of choices. It is hard enough sifting through the curriculum, let alone figuring out what learning style your child is, how to keep records, how to prepare for college. Well Mrs. Duffy covers all this and more in her organized, indexed, easy to use curriculum manuals. Every time they have been updated/revised I purchase them. I love her writing style, her personal experiences and her honesty in the features of a curriculum.
I could not have navigated through home schooling without these and definitely needed the JR/Sr. high manuals to get through the high school requirements.

Cathy Duffy is not only a gifted author, but she also knows how to review things. Sometimes it is hard to be objective, especially if you have books or material you love more than others. But Duffy tells you what is out there, what is good for different learning styles, and also what is good for your teaching style. (And gives you tests on how to discover each.) Plus there are forms in the back that help you keep records for this most important time in your student's life.
I work at a homeschool bookstore, and when people ask about a curriculum, or just how to survive high school, we grab this book!

This book gives very thorough reviews of the major publishers of homeschooling books, ie, BJU, Alpha-Omega, Christian Liberty Press, School of Tomorrow, Beautiful Feet, Greenleaf Press, A Beka - the list goes on! All the addresses, websites and phone numbers are provided in the back. It even reviews correspondence schools. Then it describes unit studies and reviews some of those suppliers. Then the best part--it describes in detail, subject by subject, various books, CD Roms, and videotape programs for teaching every subject a homeschooled student needs! All the reviews are from a Christian viewpoint and thoroughly researched. The author doesn't just pick one favorite supplier in each subject, either. She points out the pros and cons of each as well as letting you know when you don't have to buy all the teacher's manuals and extras that the publishers sometimes push. I consider this book indispensable! When a new edition comes out, I'll be first in line to buy!

This was an awesome book, really excellently written. Either a new or vetern homeschooler can learn from this book. As my child's parent and teacher it gave me wonderful ideas and resources to go look through and eventually buy. Was totally mind improving. I soaked up the information Cathy Duffy had to share. Saved me time and money by giving wonderful reviews of curriculum and resources. I can't wait for the next updated book comes out, so I can be better informed on what has come out since this 1997=1998 resource. Parents looking for curricum or resources will be refreshingly surprised at all the fine reviews you will find inside this book.

The amount of information in this book is phenomenal. Whether you're beginning or "an old pro" you will find help in teaching, curriculum, resources, learning styles and so much more. This book has been a God-send for me as a beginning homeschooler. It has also given me the confidence to believe I really can do this. This is a "must read."

When we first decided to home school our eight year old, I had no idea how to choose a curriculum. At first I thought I would just pick Abeka or Alpha and Omega or one of the other publishers and use all their books. Then I found this gem which told me not only about the incredible variety of material out there, but also the strengths and weaknesses of each. Now I've customized a curriclum that fits my daughter's needs exactly! The toll free numbers and web sites provided in the book enabled me to order all I needed over the phone or online so we could get started quickly.

Although a bit overwhelming at first glance, I found (and am continuing to find) this book to be an invaluable resource as I search the myriad curriculum choices for ones that will best serve my daughter's learning style and individual educational needs. I know I will refer to it again and again during the elementary years to help me weigh all the different options in a single, easy to use source.

This was a very thorough guide to selecting home schooling curriculum. A lot of information. It helps if you can get outside opinions on curriculum, however, because if you are just starting to home school, its almost overwhelming to try to decide what's right for you just by looking at this book.

I confess I was drawn to this book by a)the inside jacket cover photo of the exceptionally attractive young female memoirist who seemed posessed of an enigmatic, almost haunted look, and b) the mysterious suggestiveness of the book title and partially obscured cover photo -- redolent of dark family revelations -- and I was not disappointed. 30-year old Jill Christman writes a searing account of harrowing family traumas, including her own recovered memory of childhood sexual abuse, the tragic auto accident that killed the young man who was the love of her life, her older brother's being nearly scorched to death by a freak shower incident, her near life-long estrangement from her father, and the wretched death in jail of a beloved uncle incarcerated for growing marijuana. All of these dark tales are leavened with ironic humor and described in superb detail. For me, the near 20 page account of Jill's preparation of a melted cheese sandwich for her frail grandmother, the ingestion of which led to her not untimely demise, was the piece de resistance.

If you have not read this book I suggest you do. I laughed out loud, cried, and was at a loss for words with this book. I really liked how the author used the nameless voice to bring out the questions and answers from the inside. I love to read and this is by far the best memoir that I've read.

I laughed out loud, cried, and was at a lost for words while reading this book. The element that sticks out is the second voice that appears throughout the piece. I encourage everyone who loves to read to read this book. I couldn't put it down once I started. I read it in one day. Job well done Professor Christman!

This book is a perfect example of the possibilities of creative nonfiction. Like the originator of the personal essay, Montaigne, Jill Christman chooses her self as her subject-the "I"-yet, in doing so, is really writing about all of us-the "we"-of humanity. Like more modern writers-Woolf, Stein, Eliot and so on-Christman also brings to her work a richness of prose, an understanding of arrangement and construction, and the confidence to employ such techniques as flashbacks, photo collages, and intertextuality. As a teacher of literature, I enjoyed this book for all of the reasons listed above. As a person who simply loves to read, I enjoyed this book because it is a GOOD READ! Sometimes sad, sometimes happy, sometimes terrible, sometimes funny-this book consistently had me turning the pages. I certainly recommend it.

Christman does a remarkably good job of solving the problems of telling about parts of her life and family in a creative new way. Like an outstanding photographic exposure, she brackets her frames by under exposing and over exposing in all the right places until she comes up with that perfect balance between light and dark, with remarkable shadow detail in the final image. She dodges and burns, weaves in and out, and through, the painful events in her life by the use of crisp transitions, and, in many cases, unexpected humor/irony. The accounts of her life experiences are compelling -- almost too much to take in even at proper viewing distances, but her clever use of photographic imagery and her references to technical aspects of the art during some of these transitions seem to require use of both sides of the readers' brain -- making the trauma somewhat easier to allow in. The clear presense of Christman's soul in this book keeps the reader engaged in a way that makes her/him feel as though s/he is there with her. So few people are willing to risk this exposure -- to allow others to see past a seemingly "circle of confusion" to the true image on the other side of the lens without hiding behind "fiction."

Christman, a courageous woman, is also a master of her craft.

Bill Stillman writes with exquisite sensitivity and calls the reader to share that respectful approach. This helps the reader learn how to support the person(s) whom they love who happen to have autistic experiences. Further, this approach leads readers to examine their interactions with all other people.

Bill writes about his own experiences as well as the lives of others. These vignettes were wonderful illustrations of how those with autistic experiences live. One of the greatest gifts of this book, however, is its tacit invitation to all readers to examine our own lives. This is especially poignant for those who are "typical."

I found myself asking if we wouldn't all be better off by recognizing and embracing the autistic features that lay dormant in each one of us. Being sensitive, saying what we mean (and meaning what we say), and recognizing our own difficulties in communication (especially when frustrated) could make life more pleasant for everyone.

Those with an autistic experience have much to teach; we all have a responsibility to learn.

This is, overall, a great book on autism. It presents autism in a positive light, and describes why we do things instead of dismissing us as uniformly defective and inappropriate. I don't have my copy at the moment -- because I've loaned it out to a support worker, along with a few other books, in order to teach her more about the way I work.

Many books by autistic people are dry and difficult for me to read. This book is easier to read, and uses clear language. Unlike _Autism - An Inside-Out Approach_ by Donna Williams, this book does not make it sound as if those of us who are happy with ourselves either lack insight or aren't autistic enough to appreciate how disabled we are. This book does not overgeneralize from one person's experience as much as _Through the Eyes of Aliens_ by Jasmine Lee O'Neill (which I would recommend highly despite this fault). Unlike _Understanding and Working with the Spectrum of Autism: An Insider's View_ by Wendy Lawson (which may be a good book, but it's so hard to read that I'm having trouble finishing it), it doesn't read as a dry and slightly modified version of what non-autistic theorists are saying.

To my knowledge, these are the four main manuals about autism for non-autistic adults, published by autistic people. I think it would be interesting and informative to read all of them together, and that the strengths of each would balance out the weak points of the others. However, if I had to choose one out of this four, I would choose this one without thinking twice. It requires less explanation of my own when I hand it to someone to explain myself to them.

The section on augmentative communication is particularly good. I use augmentative communication, and was thankful to see a section that went beyond facilitated communication. Most books describe facilitated communication, or they describe PECS, and they kind of leave it at that, but this one covered all sorts of things. I may have had a few quibbles with a few little parts, but that's it.

There are only a few problems I have with the book:

One, the author makes it sound like autistic people are incapable of malice. While we are often accused of malice when none is there, it would carry things too far to imply that we are incapable of it. We are just as capable of it as any other group of people.

Two, the author insists that "autistic person" and "stimming" are disrespectful terms, and that "person with autism" must be used. Like nearly all the autistic people I know, I deliberately and with forethought call myself an autistic person, and like some of the autistic people I know, I use the word stimming to refer to autistic mannerisms. It would be a better idea to ask first -- lots of people like "autistic person", some like "person with autism", some use "stimming" and some don't. I think it is more respectful to call people what they want to be called than to force "person with autism" on us as the only respectful choice.

Three, there's a section in which the author appears to claim that certain kinds of autistic behavior reinforce stereotypes and should be avoided. However, it's unclear whether he actually claims this, or if he's simply describing a dynamic between autistic people and non-autistic people. If he does truly mean this, then I would have to disagree with him -- certain kinds of behavior are things anyone should avoid, but looking stereotypical is something we sometimes can't help. :-) We shouldn't be penalized for other people's myths about us.

These and a few other things aside, this is an excellent book. Don't be fooled by the length of my descriptions of the problems with the book -- it is often easier to describe in detail something I disagree with rather than something I agree with, the same way having a bad day often makes a longer story than having a good day. I like most of this book. I would recommend it (as an autistic person) for people wanting to find out more about autism.

As a parent of a twelve year old child with autism, I have read just about everything out there to help me make sense of this often complicated and confusing disorder. Much of the books I have read were redundant in their information and many just didn't apply to my child or our situation. I found myself able to relate possibly to a chapter or two at the most, before I would get discouraged and begin to look for another answer. This is not the case with this book. Bill Stillman is a gifted writer. His intention is to teach those who love someone with autism, how to accept, understand and embrace these precious children. His affection toward children on the spectrum is so evident. His information and explanations are refreshing. Bill has put together a book that is a MAJOR piece of the autism puzzle. His insights and intuitions, as well as his personal experiences and the loving and candid way he shares them are priceless. I am happy to have him on "our" side. If I could keep only one book about autism as a reference manual, it would be this one.

Dymystifing the Autistic Experience is one of those 'must reads' in autism. It is one of the rare books that offers a true look into autism. Bill grew up before Autism was diagnosable and like Temple Grandin and others hidden in the spectrum his story is one that explains an autism were one struggled quietly and alone to make sense of the world. Our Lives were strange and different but yet we came out well.

His event per event account of his autisitc life is true science and a lot of luck in action. His old time account of autism before it was a well 'known' condition is like a fine wine, getting better with time. He proves autism is not this wild unmanagle condition that requires massve intervention. His book is also another (unknowingly) report on Splinter Skills and Obessions and how well they serve the autisic person. They are our Learning Hallway and link to the world. Autisitc obessions have given the world the computer, (Alan Turing 1912-1954) and even Bill's own Wizzard of OZ obession has given the world a perfect Oz experience, in another book he co authored.

Bills' inside information and common sense experience from working in the field are 'just what the doctor ordered' and better yet is is based in reality and struggle of an era gone by. Concerned caring folks in the spectrum appreciate books like this.

This is a must-read. Highly recommended. I am a parent of young child who has high-functioning autism, and I have gained some very good insights from Mr Stillman's writings. He also helps us see ourselves through the eyes of those we think of as 'different' -- not always a pretty sight!